Another huge thank you to Carol!!
From Chapter 49
“If we do this, you could write my ‘coming out’ story. You could even say you found this man after following the story I wrote. But if you wrote this story, Perry would almost have to give you the internship.”
“And he’s not likely to take the spot away from you,” Lois nodded. “That could work. But first we need to work on you. It’s more important that we find a way to do this that doesn’t put you in any danger.”
Mom nodded. I could see Dad was still uncomfortable, but I ignored that for now. Once he saw it working, he would be on-board. I hoped.
Chapter 50
“I like her,” Mom said several hours later.
“Thanks,” I said, not sure what the appropriate response was. After a long evening of talking, Lois had given a yawn and we had decided to spend the night. She was up in my room getting ready for bed. I was sleeping on the couch.
“She’s…” Dad said, looking for words. “Perfect, I guess. I can’t imagine anyone else finding out about you and putting your safety before their best interests.”
“Yes,” Mom replied. “Lois seems to realize that keeping your secret is more important than her getting the Planet internship. Even if that’s not the same choice you made,” she said with a wink. The wink was made to soften to blow, I’m sure, but she got her point across, and I felt myself flush.
“Plus, she’s pretty,” Dad said with a smile.
“And really smart,” I said, picking up steam now. “And, she’s really kind. It’s hard to tell right away, but Lois really wants to make the world a better place.”
“It’s not hard to tell at all,” Mom said softly. “Lois is something special. I can see why you love her.”
I flushed again, although I wasn’t sure why.
“Well,” Dad said, looking at the clock. “Lois is not the only one who’s tired. I need to be up in four hours, so I think it’s time to head to bed. I don’t suppose you’ll be awake before I head out to the fields tomorrow?” he asked me.
I looked at the clock, although I knew the answer all ready. “Probably not.”
“Good night, Clark,” Mom said, giving me a kiss on the cheek. “We’ll see you and Lois on Saturday.”
I nodded. We had agreed that Lois and I would spend Saturday here working on this idea Mom had of my creating an alter ego.
************************
I was lying on the couch, unable to sleep, when I heard Lois’ heartbeat on the stairs. I sat up and waited for her to join me.
“Hi,” I said quietly as she sat down. By the moonlight streaming in the window, I could see she had chosen to wear the Smallville High t-shirt I had left out for her. It was ridiculously large on her, coming down to her knees, but it had never looked that good on me.
“Hi,” she said, tucking a leg under her as she sat next to me. “So, tell me,” she said.
“Tell you what?” I asked her.
“Everything,” she whispered. “About the spaceship you were found in. How they found you. About what it felt like growing up. About how you felt the first time you did the Boy in Black thing. About how scared you are now that someone outside your parents knows your secret. Everything.”
I smiled. It was so Lois to want to know all the details.
I took a deep breath. “The spaceship – I don’t know much about it. Mom and Dad don’t talk about it much. I know how they found me, though. Mom and Dad wanted a kid, but they couldn’t get pregnant. Apparently, Mom has some sort of condition so she stopped being able to get pregnant as a teenager, but she didn’t know it. Anyway, it took them a long time to find that out.
“Finally, they went to see some sort of specialist in Metropolis…”
“So, they’d been to Metropolis before you started college?” Lois interrupted.
I nodded. “Mom grew up in Boston, so she’d been there lots of times growing up. I think my dad has only been there that once aside from taking me to school. Anyway, it was the specialist who diagnosed Mom with her condition – let them know that they could keep trying, but their chances of conceiving were only slightly higher than zero. Dad was trying to cheer Mom up the night after they came back, so they went to dinner in town at Maisie’s.
“On the way back, Mom saw a shooting star. At first she made a wish on it – wished that they’d somehow get pregnant anyway, but then she realized it was a really bright star and she thought it had actually landed, so she decided to investigate.
“I had landed in Shuster’s Field, which is pretty much unowned property since Tom Shuster died thirty years ago or something. Mom and Dad walked around until they found my spaceship.
“And Mom decided to keep me. She and Dad raced home and got some materials to transfer the ship to the farm. Mom said she held me in her arms the whole time, and I just fit there.”
Lois smiled. “It was fate that they found you.”
I nodded. “I like to think my birth parents planned it that way. I know it’s not true. I know in reality, most likely I don’t even have birth parents, I was created in a lab or something, but I still like to think that Mom and Dad were chosen. I guess even if they weren’t, no one could have chosen better parents for me.”
“You are lucky,” Lois agreed. “Even if you don’t know your origins. You could have worse parents.”
I nodded, realizing that I was lucky. Compared to Lois or Maddie, I was, even if I was space trash.
“So what else?” Lois asked.
“About being found?” I asked. She shrugged to show that she didn’t care what it was, as long as I kept telling her things. “They were worried that some government types would be looking for me – either American or Russian depending on where I was created. So, they got rid of the spaceship. I don’t really know how,” I told her, anticipating her question. “It’s never come up before. And they told everyone in town that I was the son of a cousin of Mom’s.
“You know how small towns are – they always think people living in the big city are devoid of morals, so it was easy to get them to believe that a cousin of Mom’s from Boston had gotten pregnant out of wedlock and couldn’t take care of the baby. Over time, I guess, people just started to accept that I was Mom and Dad’s. No one’s ever asked me why Mom’s cousin never visits to see me.”
“I can’t believe they did all that,” Lois said awed. “Do you think… I mean, if you had had a normal childhood, that is, do you think if you had found a baby in a spaceship that you’d go through all that trouble for it?”
I shrugged. “I like to think I would. But maybe not. And who knows. Maybe Mom and Dad wouldn’t if they hadn’t wanted kids. Or they had some of their own. It was a lot of hassle.”
Lois nodded, but then I corrected myself. “Actually, I think they would have done it anyway. That’s just the sort of people they are.”
Lois nodded. “Yeah, I guess I can see that.”
“I was a terror when I got older. When I first discovered all the things I could do. I was scared of them, and scared of feeling different. Mom and Dad could have bailed on me so many times. It couldn’t have been easy on them. But they never did. No matter what happened, no matter what new, weird thing we discovered about me, or how awful I was, they always let me know how much they loved me. How much they wanted me.” My words were soft and I could feel the tears in my eyes, but ignored them. I was so lucky. I got that. I always had, really, and still I had spent a lot of this year not appreciating all my parents did for me. Worse yet, my little stunt with the article could have put them in a lot of danger. I was an ingrate.
“Did you feel unwanted as a child?” Lois asked quietly, her hand on mine.
I shrugged. “Not as a child,” I told her. “More… later, I guess. When I started to realize I wasn’t normal. I remember one time… I was about fourteen. I heard Mom and Dad talking… Well, really I was eavesdropping. I had just recently discovered the hearing thing, but hadn’t worked to control it yet.
“Anyway, I heard Mom and Dad saying I couldn’t have the farm. I threw a temper tantrum. Dad had always said he was leaving the farm for me to run, and I was so upset that he had changed his mind.”
“You thought it was because you’re… different?” Lois asked.
I nodded. “Pretty much. I remember accusing Dad of not wanting some weirdo running his farm.”
Lois moved closer to me. “You’re not a weirdo,” she said softly.
“That’s what Dad said,” I told her.
“Why couldn’t you have the farm anymore?”
I chuckled softly. “I could. They just thought I wouldn’t want it. That I’d rather be a writer than a farmer.”
Lois laughed. “You didn’t realize that?” she asked me, her laughter still warm in my ear.
“I did. I guess I didn’t realize that they did. And I was so ready… for something… for some sign that they didn’t want me anymore, I guess.”
“It must have been so hard for you,” Lois said, moving away to look up at me. “I mean, it was so different than for me. My parents aren’t like yours. They seem to barely remember that they had kids. I’m really not sure if they love Lucy and me. But… I don’t know. I guess I always pictured that you had this idyllic life here in the country with parents that love you, you know? But it wasn’t like that, was it?”
“I guess it could have been,” I said. “I think it was when I was little. Before I realized I was different.”
Lois wrapped her arms around me even more tightly than before. “I’m sorry.”
“For what?” I asked her, nearly whispering in her hair.
“For how hard it must have been. Learning all that about yourself. Feeling like you didn’t belong. I’m just… sorry.”
I started to tell her that it could have been worse, that it wasn’t so bad, but I stopped. It was nice that she understood. And while it could have been worse, there were certainly times when it hadn’t felt like it could. It was nice that Lois got that. So, instead, I tightened my hold on her and whispered, “Thanks.”
************************
When I awoke later, it was to find both Lois and myself sprawled on the couch. Lois didn’t look at all comfortable. We had fallen asleep sitting next to each other, holding each other, and apparently when we fell asleep had just sort of tipped over from that position.
A fast glance with my special eyesight confirmed that Mom and Dad were up. They were both in the barn. It looked like Dad was having some trouble with the tractor, so I gently extricated myself from the mess of arms and legs Lois and I made on the couch. After I gently repositioned Lois into what looked like a more comfortable position, I tucked the blanket I’d been using over her.
I ran upstairs and threw on an old pair of cutoffs and a t-shirt, giving my teeth a fast brushing, before heading outside.
“’Mornin’,” Dad said when he saw me. “Care to give me a hand?”
“That’s what I’m here for,” I told him. “I saw you from the living room.”
“You and Lois looked awfully cozy on the couch,” Mom said pointedly.
I grimaced. I had hoped they hadn’t noticed that. “It was a mistake,” I told her. “Lois came down as she couldn’t sleep. We were talking and just…”
Dad’s guffaw interrupted my flow of words. “It’s all right, son. Your Mom was just teasing. Neither of us thought you purposely fell asleep like that. It didn’t look at all comfortable.”
I threw Mom a look to let her know I didn’t appreciate her teasing, but ended up smiling at the grin on her face. My conversation with Lois last night came back to me, and as I went to reach for some of Dad’s tools, I said, “You know, I’m not sure I’ve ever thanked you.”
“Thanked whom?” Mom asked.
“Both of you,” I said while using my special vision thing to look amid the mass of wires in the tractor engine. It turns out one of them was just loose, so I set about prying off the cover and trying to get to it without disturbing the others.
“For what?” Dad asked.
“For everything,” I told them as I located the wire. “For taking me in when you knew you were potentially putting yourself at risk. For raising me, even when I was being really difficult. For… keeping me, I guess. Even though I turned out to be… not normal.”
“Oh, Clark,” Mom said, moving over to me. “You don’t need to thank us for that. We did it because we love you.”
I nodded, “Yeah, and thank you for that, too. It couldn’t have been easy.”
“Now see here,” Dad said, his voice firm. “Stop talking like you were some sort of burden or an ugly, evil mutant that no one could love or something. You’re a boy, a wonderful boy. We are lucky to have you as a son. I’m tired of this, Clark. Of you’re not feeling worthy enough or whatever it is you feel.
“Your mother and I didn’t do you any favors. Well, except for having to put up with hearing you talk like this. You’re my son and I won’t have anyone, even you, bad-mouthing my son. Not unless he’s saying something true.”
I nodded, not sure what to say, but feeling chastised just the same. I guess I could see his point. I was a bit of a broken record this year. Even more than normal. But really, I’d just been trying to thank them.
Mom gave me a tight hug. “We love you, Clark. And not because we feel like we have to ‘cause we took you in nineteen years ago. But because you’re a wonderful person. We knew when we took you out of that spaceship that we were in for some troublesome times. And we worried about what you may be like – would you be a baby forever? If not, would you turn out to be some sort of bred assassin or something?
“We were prepared for having to deal with all sorts of things, but most of them were unjustified fears. In all the ways that are important, you are just a boy. And if we had been able to go to a store and pick you out, we couldn’t have done better.”
I sniffled, willing the tears to go away, as I gave her a tight hug.
“I told Lois last night that I like to think… well, I know I probably don’t have birth parents. But I like to think that if I do, they chose you. It wasn’t some random coincidence that landed me here. Because I know if I do have parents, and they were able to choose, they couldn’t have found anyone better.”
Mom smiled, brushing my hair off my forehead. “I don’t know about that, but I’m sure they couldn’t have found anyone that would love you as much as we do.”
She gave me another hug and Dad came over and joined us.
“So,” he said a second later, “is my tractor ready yet?”
We laughed lightly. “Just a second, Dad,” I told him as I reattached the cover.
Dad leaned over and turned it on, smiling when the engine started up. “Yeah,” he said, ruffling my hair, “I guess we’ll keep you.”
